CDP Corporate ‘Questionnaire Setup’Preview

Version
Version number

Release / Revision date

Revision summary

1.0

Released: April 16, 2024

Publication of the corporate ‘questionnaire setup’preview.

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Contents
Corporate ‘Questionnaire Setup’............................................................................................................................. 1
Version...................................................................................................................................................................... 2Contents........................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Overview of corporate ‘questionnaire setup’....................................................................................................... 4
About your organization............................................................................................................................................ 5
What was your organization’s annual revenue for the reporting year in USD?..................................... 5
What was the total number of employees in your organization? ............................................................ 6
SME eligibility...................................................................................................................................................... 6
Activity classification ................................................................................................................................................ 7
What were your organization’s business activities according to CDP-ACS?........................................ 7
Assessment of environmental issues ................................................................................................................... 8
Did your organization assess or identify any forests- or water-related issues? .................................. 8
Intent to submit ........................................................................................................................................................... 9
Climate change .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Plastics & Biodiversity ...................................................................................................................................... 9
Forests & Water.................................................................................................................................................. 9
Additional information – Commodities disclosure .......................................................................................... 10
Which commodities does your organization produce and/or source? ................................................ 10
Additional information – Operating mines ......................................................................................................... 12
Did your organization operate mines, plan to operate mines, or close any mining projects? ........ 12
Note for Public Authorities..................................................................................................................................... 13

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Overview of corporate ‘questionnaire setup’
The ‘questionnaire setup’ is part of corporate disclosers’ onboarding process on the CDP platform. It
allows us to customize the CDP questionnaire to be relevant to your organization.
You can change your answers at any time until you submit your final CDP response. However, if youchange your answers, this could affect the questions that appear in the CDP questionnaire.
Note: Your answers to the questionnaire setup will not be publicly disclosed, even if you choose to
make the rest of your CDP response public.
These are the areas that are covered in the questionnaire setup. Some may not be presented to yourorganization:






About your organization
Activity classification
Assessment of environmental issues
Intent to submit
Additional information

You can find more details about what you will be asked in each section below.

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About your organization
CDP recognizes that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) may have different reporting capabilities
and requirements compared to larger organizations. For this reason, CDP has two corporate
questionnaires: the full questionnaire and the SME questionnaire.
The full corporate questionnaire is suitable for large organizations and includes sector-specificdatapoints. Meanwhile, the SME questionnaire is tailored to the needs of SMEs and contains fewer andsimplified datapoints.
Only organizations that meet CDP’s SME eligibility thresholds will have the option to complete the SME
questionnaire. This is determined by:
1. Your annual revenue in USD for the reporting year;
2. Your organization’s headcount of total employees in the reporting year.
This section is not presented to organizations that have a “CDP Capital Markets – Public Authorities”
request only.

Question preview
What was your organization’s annual revenue for the reporting year in USD?
End date of reporting year

Annual revenue (USD)

DD/MM/YYYY$

Reporting year
The reporting year refers to the most recent 12-month period for which data is reported throughout yourCDP disclosure.
 Apply this reporting year to all your responses both in the setup and throughout thequestionnaire.
 CDP recommends that organizations provide the year for which they have complete data. It isalso recommended to align sustainability-related financial disclosures with the reporting yearof corresponding financial statements.
 Your reporting year should fall within the last five years, but CDP strongly recommends
providing data from the past two years.
Annual revenue Please convert your annual revenue to USD when providing a figure.
 If you are unable to provide an exact revenue figure, round to the nearest value possible.
 Note: your annual revenue will not be publicly disclosed, even if you choose to make the rest of
your response public, but it may be shared with organizations who have directly requested you
to disclose to CDP such as CDP Supply Chain members, if applicable (for more information,
see your “Requests” page on the Discloser Dashboard).

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Question preview
What was the total number of employees in your organization?
Total employees
Numerical field

Total employees
 Use the approach of ‘staff headcount’ to determine how many employees your organization
has had in the reporting year.
 Include the total number of individuals that were employed on a full-time, part-time, or otherbasis. Do not include volunteers (i.e., individuals who received no compensation for the work
they did). For example, an organization that had 200 full-time employees, 100 part-time
employees, and 10 volunteers in the reporting year should enter “300”.

SME eligibility thresholds
 Organizations with a headcount of less than 500 total employees and annual revenue less than
USD 50 million are eligible and recommended to complete the SME questionnaire.
 Organizations with a headcount of less than 500 total employees and revenue between USD
50M – USD 250M, as well as organizations with a headcount of 500 – 1,000 total employees
and annual revenue less than USD 250 million are eligible to complete the SME questionnaire
but are recommended to complete the full corporate questionnaire.
 Organizations with a headcount of more than 1,000 total employees or annual revenue of morethan USD 250 million are not eligible to complete the SME questionnaire and can only complete
the full corporate questionnaire.

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Activity classification
During a single reporting year, organizations may derive revenue from several business activities. CDP’s
Activity Classification System (CDP-ACS) is a three-tiered system made up of Industry, Activity Group,and Activity. It takes into account the diverse activities from which organizations derive revenue andassociates them with relevant environmental issues.
Understanding your activities and associating them with CDP’s ‘questionnaire sectors’ will ensure thatyou are presented with the most appropriate sector-specific questions in your CDP disclosure,particularly if you operate in sectors with a high environmental impact. Organizations may be allocatedup to 4 questionnaire sectors, however you will only receive a CDP score based on your responses
relating to your primary questionnaire sector.
In this section, you are requested to complete your organization’s business activities according to CDPACS:
1. CDP Industry
2. CDP Activity Group
3. CDP Activity
4. % annual revenue associated with activity
Note: If you are responding to the SME questionnaire or if you are an organization with no requests todisclose to CDP other than a “CDP Capital Markets – Public Authorities” request, completing your ACS
information is optional and will not affect the questions presented in your CDP disclosure.
Question preview
What were your organization’s business activities according to CDP-ACS?
CDP Industry

CDP Activity GroupCDP Activity

Questionnaire
sector% annual revenue
associated withactivity

Select from:

Select from:

Select from:[auto-populated,
non-editable]% Numerical field

Dropdown list of
CDP Industries

Dropdown list of CDP
Activity Groups inselected Industry

Dropdown list of
CDP Activities inselected Activity
Group[enter a number from 0100 using a maximumof 2 decimal places][Add row]

Before completing these fields, consult the CDP-ACS table and descriptions to ensure that you areselecting the most appropriate activities for your organization in the reporting year. The column“Questionnaire sector” is auto-populated and indicates which questionnaire sector each of youractivities is associated with.
CDP may already have some of your ACS information on file, in which case this data will be prepopulated in this table. If you have a “Capital Markets” request and we have your information on file,
you will only be able to edit the column on “% annual revenue associated with activity” and will need tocontact CDP to amend your ACS data.

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Assessment of environmental issues
In line with leading environmental standards and frameworks, such as the ESRS and TNFD, CDP
requests organizations to provide input about environmental issues beyond climate change that they
have assessed and deem material to their organization. Specifically, this section requests:
1. Has your organization assessed any forests- and/or water-related issues?
2. If so, has your organization identified any substantive forests- and/or water-related
dependencies, impacts, risks, and/or opportunities?
Note: This section is not presented if you are responding to the SME questionnaire or if you are anorganization with no requests to disclose to CDP other than a “CDP Capital Markets – Public
Authorities” request.

Question preview
Did your organization assess or identify any forests- or water-related issues?
Environmental
issue

Assessment of dependencies, impacts,
risks, and/or opportunities

Identification of dependencies, impacts,
risks, and/or opportunities

Forests

Select from:

Select from:

•
•

•
•

Yes
No

Yes
No

Water security

Assessment and identification
The difference between the two terms in this question:
 Assessment: the process of evaluating dependencies and impacts on forests and/or water, as
well as the risks and opportunities to your business relating to forests and/or water; Identification: the outcome of your assessment process i.e., whether or not you have identified
substantive dependencies, impacts, risks, or opportunities relating to forests and/or water.
Note: If your organization has not assessed or identified any dependencies, impacts, risks , oropportunities, you may still be asked to disclose forests and/or water-related information:
 If the environmental impact of your organization’s business activities (CDP-ACS) meets CDP’s
industry impact classification;
 If a requesting organization asks you to disclose on a specific environmental issue (e.g., a Bankor a CDP Supply Chain member. For more information, see your “Requests” page on the
Discloser Dashboard).

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Intent to submit
Climate change
All organizations disclosing to CDP will be asked questions relating to climate change. If you do notintend to submit data relating to climate change, CDP will consider this as non-disclosure. If you are
eligible for scoring, this may affect your CDP score.
Plastics & Biodiversity
All organizations responding to the full corporate questionnaire will be asked supplementary questions
on plastics and biodiversity. These are not scored. There are no questions on plastics or biodiversity
for organizations responding to the SME questionnaire.
Forests & Water security
Organizations may be requested to disclose information on forests and/or water security in multipleways: Due to an authority request i.e., capital markets request, supply chain request, banks request
etc. This means that a requesting authority has asked you to submit data specifically on either
forests or water security, or on both. You can find more information on your “Requests” pageon the Discloser Dashboard.
 Based on industry impact classification i.e., the environmental impact of your CDP-ACS
activities on forests and/or water, as established by the CDP industry impact classification.
This is not applicable to organizations responding to the SME questionnaire.
 Self-assessment i.e., based on whether you have indicated that you have identified substantive
forests- and/or water-related issues in your response to the “Assessment of environmental
issues” section. This is not applicable to organizations responding to the SME questionnaire
and organizations with no requests to disclose to CDP other than a “CDP Capital Markets –Public Authorities” request.
You will be asked to respond to forests and/or water security if at least one of the above conditions aremet for forests and/or water security respectively. You can either accept or decline to respond, however
there may be scoring implications if you choose to decline.
If none of the above conditions are met for forests and/or water security, you can still opt in tosubmitting data. There are no scoring implications if you subsequently opt out.
If you are an organization with no requests to disclose to CDP other than a “ CDP Capital Markets –Public Authorities” request, you will not be asked to submit data regarding forests or water security.

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Additional information – Commodities disclosure
Global demand for agricultural commodities is the primary driver of deforestation and conversion ofother natural ecosystems, for example due to unsustainable timber extraction and land being cleared
for agricultural production. CDP’s full corporate questionnaire contains questions on specificcommodities, which aim to guide organizations on their journey to remove commodity-driven
deforestation and conversion of other natural ecosystems from their value chains.
This section of the questionnaire set up is only presented if you have accepted a request to report on
forests or if you have opted in to report on forests. This section does not appear for organizations
responding to the SME questionnaire.

Question preview
Which commodities does your organization produce and/or source?
Commodities

Has your organization produced and/or
sourced this commodity in the reportingyear?

Will you be disclosing on this commodity?

Timber products

Select from:

Select from:

•
•

•
•

Yes
No

Yes
No

Palm oil
Cattle products
Soy
Rubber
Cocoa
CoffeeCommodities
Forms of commodities applicable to disclosure include, but are not limited to: Raw materials;
 Processed ingredients and manufactured goods that contain commodities; Derivatives;
 Soy embedded as animal feed in animal products e.g., meat, dairy, eggs, or other animal
products as ingredients.
About your disclosure If your organization produced or sourced timber products, palm oil, cattle products, or soy inthe reporting year, you should disclose information on these commodities. If you produce orsource one of these commodities, but choose to not disclose on it, this may have an impact on
your overall CDP Forests score.
 Disclosure on rubber, cocoa, or coffee commodities will not be scored in 2024.

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 If you indicate that your organization produced or sourced a commodity but you will not be
disclosing data about it, you will be asked for further information in the questionnaire, including
how you produce or source the commodity and why you are not disclosing data on it.

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Additional information – Operating mines
The full corporate questionnaire contains sector-specific questions on biodiversity for organizations
with mining projects.
This section of the questionnaire setup is only presented if you are responding to the full corporate
questionnaire and your organization engages in any of the following CDP-ACS activities: Coal extraction& processing, Other non-ferrous metals, Iron & steel, Precious metals, Aluminum, Metal processing,Copper, Iron ore mining, Precious metals & minerals mining, Bauxite mining, Other non-ferrous ore
mining, Other non-metallic minerals.
You can find more details, including descriptions for each activity in CDP’s Activity Classification
System (CDP-ACS).
This section is not presented to organizations responding to the SME questionnaire or organizations
with no requests to disclose to CDP other than a “CDP Capital Markets – Public Authorities” request.

Question preview
Did your organization operate mines, plan to operate mines, or close any mining projects?
Select from:
•
•

Yes
No

Mining projects“Mining projects” refers to the extraction of all types of raw materials such as bauxite, precious metals,
non-ferrous metals (e.g. nickel, zinc, lead, lithium), iron ore, diamonds, coal (thermal coal, metallurgicalcoal). Activities relating to the exploration of an area of interest for a mining project, development toestablish permanent access to the ore body and carry out commercial production, and closure of amine are also considered to be stages of a mining project.
Select “Yes” if, during the reporting year: you conducted any mining projects in the development or production stage;
 you explored the opening of a mining project and feasibility studies were completed; you were in the process of closing a mining project. This includes site clean-up and restoration,
removal of facilities, reclamation and rehabilitation, environmental monitoring; or you were responsible for a legacy site with pending remedial actions.

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Note for Public Authorities
Organizations that only have a “CDP Capital Markets – Public Authorities” request (and no other CDP
request e.g., from a CDP Supply Chain member, Bank etc.) will be eligible to complete the Public
Authorities pathway and are therefore presented with a simplified questionnaire setup that only
includes: Activity classification (optional, but recommended) Intent to submit: Climate change
However, Public Authorities with any other type of CDP request in addition to the “CDP Capital Markets– Public Authorities” request will navigate questionnaire setup according to the requirements of theirother requests. For more information, see your “Requests” page in the Discloser Dashboard.

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